British intelligence officers are at risk of being exploited by the executive because of a lack of legal definition of the rules under which they should operate, leading human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce warned earlier this month.

Ms Peirce told delegates at a Law Society conference on torture and terrorism that a 'proper moral debate' was needed on the use of evidence obtained by torture.


She said: 'It is not a criticism of our intelligence services to say that they do not have a legally defined methodology of their work. It is not necessarily against the interests of obtaining evidence to wish to be protected against an executive that might be quite capable of exploiting those who work in that service, by requiring them to be involved in coercive interrogation. Why on earth in this country have we never defined our moral and legal ground on which intelligence services operate?'


She added: 'We have never stepped back and had a proper moral debate in this country as to what we are going to ask our agents to comply with.'


Ms Peirce acts for several men who were detained indefinitely without charge at Belmarsh prison on the basis that they could not be returned to their country of origin because they would face torture. She said: 'The appeals [against indefinite detention] in 2003 meant a brief opportunity came to examine an MI5 agent. The question was asked, do you use evidence and information that comes from torture, and the answer was, "yes of course, the only question is what weight we give it". That revealed something that this country did not know. It had never been debated in Parliament or explained to the public.'


Following a House of Lords ruling in December 2004 that indefinite detention was illegal, the UK is negotiating diplomatic assurances with various countries that the men will not be tortured when returned. Ms Peirce said: 'The very individuals who were detained indefinitely without trial on the basis that they would be tortured if they went back are now going to be removed to torture.'